3 | How identifying the change in your love language can help you feel more loved after the birth of your child

This episode delves into the concept of love languages and how understanding them can strengthen your connection with your partner after the birth of your child. Saba emphasizes the importance of knowing each other's love languages to enhance how you both give and receive love, which is crucial in maintaining a strong relationship during the demanding early stages of parenthood.

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

what's important to really know about these love languages is that it's not how you love or what your love language is, but rather how you give and receive love. It's important for both of you to know each other's love language and then understand what that entails or could look like in your unique relationship.

0:21

And this can change or may need to be amplified with the arrival of your little one.

Speaker: 0:27

Welcome to Partners Beyond Parenthood, the podcast that helps new parents thrive without losing themselves. My name is Saba Bouzouner and my mission is to help new and overwhelmed parents gain clarity on what their priorities and needs are to reconnect with their partner and get back to their goals and ambitions. This episode aims to help you understand how knowing your and your partner's love language or languages can result in transforming your connection for the better after the birth of your child. So I want to start by talking about what the five love languages are. Uh, this is a concept that was developed by Gary Chapman. he wrote a book about it, called The Five Love Languages. There is also a quiz, which takes you perhaps around 10 minutes, to do and you will receive the results via email. Uh, I highly recommend you do it if you have not done it so far. the reason being because I do think that the five love languages are quite powerful in connecting with your partner. a Let me talk about what the five love languages are. They are acts of service, quality time, physical touch, words of affirmation, and gifts. Acts of service can best be described as doing something for your partner that you know they like, or Could also mean them going out of their way to do something, uh, for you. cause they know that it'll help you in one way or another. That could be, especially again in the context of just having a baby, uh, helping out with the laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning up the kitchen, uh, taking the night shift when it was actually your night, you know, because you've had a long day and need rest, uh, or they prepared dinner because they had some extra time,, or they take care of admin stuff because that's not your strength. You know, waiting in line to get on the phone to a customer service representative. To be honest, I don't know whose favorite activity that is, but that's always appreciated by anyone. Um, but yeah, so just to give you an idea, that's for acts of service. Uh, the second one I'd mentioned is quality time. That would be along the lines of uninterrupted one on one time that can be spent in a variety of ways, right? Everybody's different. So not everyone likes to spend time the same way, but that could look like Actually just hanging out together doing stuff outdoors or even indoors. So watching a movie together Reading a book in one another's company playing a game Uh, regular date nights, or literally just occupying space next to you. It could be in silence, and that could be enough. And that could be quality time, just knowing that your partner is there with you. The important aspect in quality time is not having distractions. It's that uninterrupted time together, like it could be 15 to 20 minutes or more of a great conversation. Uh, for others it might need to be a longer walk together where you also talk, etc. Then the third one I'd mentioned was physical touch. You know, here often people jump straight to sex or the intimacy that comes with that, but it really goes beyond that. Physical touch involves holding hands, cuddling. a good hug, Or also A nice massage. This is particularly helpful when your partner is breastfeeding. You definitely feel it a lot in your back. So massages, I mean, they're always welcome, but in those moments, it's particularly helpful, I'd say. Then the fourth one I'd mentioned was words of affirmation. Um, these are things such as, I love you, I'm proud of you, you look incredible, you inspire me. Again in the context of having a baby, you are such a great mother or father, you're doing such a great job. et cetera. Then the last one I'd mentioned was gifts. That's the fifth one. And here, I think it's important to know that it's not actually the physical item itself that counts necessarily in the sense when people say, Oh, gifts are my primary love language, what is actually meant here is the thought behind the gift. So it could be a thoughtful note. Um, again, a massage here that you've gifted them, perhaps a voucher at their favourite place where they like to get massages because you know they really need that. Um, a big water bottle because you've seen how much water you drink when breastfeeding, for example. A book, he or she has been wanting to read. A voucher for a yoga or dance class with your baby. This could be for dads and moms. but, uh, you get the idea. So it's like the thought behind actually giving the gift. You know that the actual activity involved in the gift or the gift itself is going to make them feel really happy and loved. It's normal to feel loved in a variation or a combination of these. So for example, words of affirmation may not be your top love language, but you still love hearing, I love you, or I'm proud of you, et cetera. Or your main love language may be receiving gifts, but you still appreciate those intimate moments of holding hands or cuddling, which would be physical touch. All right. So now that I've gone through the different love languages, what's important to really know about these love languages is that it's not how you love or what your love language is, but rather how you give and receive love. It's important for both of you to know each other's love language and then understand what that entails or could look like in your unique relationship. Now, if you know what your love language is, And are listening to this thinking, help, ours are so different. We are incompatible. It is important to know having different love languages does not mean you are not compatible. It only means that you give and receive love differently. This concept of love language is it's a tool to help understand your partner and yourself better. Yes, it may take a while to get better at learning to love in their love language, but knowing what it is, is the first step. And you may be thinking it's difficult to meet the other's needs because, again, if this is the first time you're hearing about it, you're probably thinking, oh gosh, now I have to, you know, change a few things in how to show love. For example, if gifts is low on your scale of love languages, but high for your partner, and they give you a lot of gifts because that's how they would imagine love feels like, because that is what they would like, sure, you might appreciate them and you happily accept them, but you may also think it's, um, unnecessary and would rather have spent the time they took to get you that gift and spend it with them. If you never voice that you may rather have spent time with them instead of receiving that gift, your partner may continue going out of their way to get you gifts, thinking, Oh, they love this, you know, they always accept this and seem to really appreciate it, but actually you like it, of course, but you have preferences for receiving love in another way. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit further. Um, I was first introduced to love languages in 2019. I think. Um, all my friends were talking about theirs and I was like, what is this? So I went ahead, I did the quiz, got the results. my top. Love language is, acts of service, but it's followed very closely by quality time. similar to my husband actually. And because there's five, it's going to give you a ranking from, you know, the first one to the fifth one. But your first one is usually the one that if your partner does that for you, that's how you're going to feel loved,, the most. if this is the first time you are hearing about this concept, it may be the first time you see how love can be shown in many different ways. Through the various interviews I did leading up to this podcast, I started to notice a trend, and that was the increased necessity of your partner showing up in your current love language after the baby was born. I say current because there seemed to have been a slight shift in what the parents needed. Let me provide some examples and put it into context. So, as mentioned, my love language is acts of service. Um, and once the baby was born, we'd already, um, So I had taken off work. We'd found someone to, uh, take over my part. And, um, I had essentially said, like, you know, I'd really love to be super present, etc and my husband had agreed to take over all of the admin stuff. My baby was born in Mexico City. So we had to, you know, register in Mexico, but also in the German consulate, et cetera. So he really took over all of that. And I just felt an enormous amount of love through his acts of service on taking care of all these things. You know, communicating with the people, making sure we had the documents notarized. That was a lot of back and forth and would have just been a A lot more for my mommy brain to take on, so I was so grateful that he went through all of that. On the flip side, so on my part, I had decided to do all the nights, because I had decided to breastfeed, and didn't see the point in two parents being exhausted all the time. So, That was my way of showing acts of service to him to let him essentially sleep through the nights. Um, of course he shared some nights,, with me and the baby, but it just helped him obviously get through the day so much better. And that was my way of being like, look, I got this. I know you're taking care of so much throughout the day, but I got this. It's important that you sleep, um, which then of course in turn helps me throughout the day if I need to take a nap. But that was how we balanced out the acts of service, uh, for one another during this time, so after the baby was born. Another example I'd like to share, which came from some of the interviews I conducted, uh, this was from a couple where they noticed how their need to receive love through a different love language increased after having kids. So Physical touch was the primary way they both showed and liked to receive love. But once they had kids, the wife in particular realized how she needed to receive love through words of affirmation. The hugs, cuddling, holding hands were just no longer enough. She needed to hear, you're doing such a good job, you are an incredible mother, you look beautiful, you're doing so much for the baby and our family and I appreciate you so much. And here I have to say, I think this holds true for many women since, or many mothers, since we go through so many changes, right? In fact, I redid the test and Words of Affirmation had suddenly gone up so much that it was at the same level as my second love language, which is Quality Time. When I first did the test in 2019, it ranked far lower, so that just goes to show how much that changed for me after the birth of our child.

Speaker 5: 11:44

You know

Speaker: 11:44

We have the body image. Our body has transformed, has created a human being during those nine months. We have a whole shift in hormones. There's the baby blues, postpartum depression. There's general fatigue, being overwhelmed, and never really knowing if you're doing something right or not, right?

Speaker 3: 12:00

And this is, of course, also true for fathers. Words of affirmation may also be much higher within the spectrum of your love languages because you are also figuring this out, right? You're also thinking, am I doing this right? And getting those words of affirmation of you're such a great father, you're doing x, y, z so well, is also a great way of receiving love from your partner in that postpartum

12:26

It's all just figuring it out. So, words of affirmation, I think. Whether it's your love language or not can always be helpful. But in this case, this was the example that stood out where, you know, first it was always physical touch, how intimacy, etc. was very important, but then after, like, she just really needed to hear those words of affirmation. In another interview, One mother told me how her primary love language was usually quality time, but in the first few months of her baby's life, she needed to receive love through acts of service. She felt loved when her partner either helped out directly or engaged help, either paid or did it himself. So again, he didn't necessarily do it, but he was contributing towards her freeing up time in a different way, so she didn't feel so overwhelmed. And here the importance of understanding each other's love language is to meet your partner's needs of how they need to feel loved. And this can change or may need to be amplified with the arrival of your little one. You know, you can give all the love you think your partner might need, but if it's not speaking their love language at that moment in time, then chances are you may be feeling disconnected on top of being overwhelmed with the little one. I'll take myself as an example again. My first one is acts of service, uh, quality time is the second one. We have now made it a point to spend a lot of quality time together and that to me definitely fulfills me. I feel a lot of love through this as well. That being said, I still require Acts of service from my husband to really be like, oh, like I see he's doing stuff for me That's that's how I see the love. So while it might not be on a constant basis or it's so frequent It does still happen and That shows me that he's going out of his way or he's making an effort because he knows That by him doing something it would make me happy so, if you knew about this concept before or are just learning about it, it can be helpful to reassess and voice your needs at this moment in time. So much changes with having a baby and it is so important to continuously communicate what your needs are. So I encourage you to talk about this and see if you think there has been a change. You might even learn that nothing has changed, but you may just need more of it. then what you have been receiving since the baby arrived, and then you can also take it from there. So in case you'd like to learn what your love language is, if you don't know it already, or would like to take the test again, I've left a link in the show notes for you to take the quiz. I really hope that this is helpful in navigating this new and challenging time. And if you'd like to share more about your experience of how this has changed for you, and would like some tips or actionable things to do, feel free to join my Facebook group, Partners Beyond Parenthood. You can find the link in the show notes.

Speaker: 15:21

Thank you so much for listening.